SkipCaptcha
3,995
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Line 305:
Line 305: + + + + + +
→Flaws in governance structure: expand
The problems are in the structure and in the personality flaws of Wales himself. Wales takes advantage of this vast pool of free labor to hunt his perceived enemies, somewhat in the style of [[L. Ron Hubbard]] or other such supposed founders of movements.{{fact}}
The problems are in the structure and in the personality flaws of Wales himself. Wales takes advantage of this vast pool of free labor to hunt his perceived enemies, somewhat in the style of [[L. Ron Hubbard]] or other such supposed founders of movements.{{fact}}
Equally important are the flawed steps that Wales took to separate the community of volunteer Wikipedia editors from the financial control of the enterprise. The servers and software are owned by the [[Wikimedia Foundation]] (WMF), a non-profit organization that at first was set up as a membership organization, but quickly changed to a non-membership organization so that members would not have any legal say regarding the organization. Although people who have made a required minimum number of edits per year can vote for members of the Arbitration Committee and for a minority of the WMF Board seats, at least one community-elected Board member was removed because he did not agree with the majority of the Board. Of course, Wales is guaranteed a perpetual WMF Board seat as a co-founder.
Originally, revenue from fundraising banners in the United States went to the WMF, but banner revenue in foreign countries went to the chapters located in those countries. In recent years, the WMF has consolidated all fundraising revenues, with national chapters being forced to apply for specific grants from the WMF.
To further complicate the financial controls, the WMF established a separate endowment at the [[Tides Foundation]] which is controlled by that foundation in consultation with an advisory board. Instead of having a community-selected advisory board or the entire WMF serving as the advisory board, a new group was appointed with Wales and large donors serving. When the endowment reaches its fundraising target, the advisory board decides whether the funds should stay at the Tides Foundation, be transferred to the WMF, or used in some other way. So, if Wales has a falling out with the WMF Board over the next ten years, he and his hand-picked advisory board could take the Wikipedia endowment somewhere else.
==See also ==
==See also ==